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Land use change

Land use and land use change is a catchment-wide basic assessing how we are using our land. Over half of the area of the catchment is categorised as “production grassland”, dominated by low producing grassland. Following grassland, the most common land uses in the catchment are forest land (16.6%), and grassland with woody biomass (11.0%). Built-up areas account for only 0.3% of the total area of the catchment.

60%

Areas of built-up land have increased by 60% while the population increased four-fold since 1990.

Data Source

Catchment boundary Land Use Category Forest Cropland Grassland Grassland with woody biomass Build-up areas Wetland Other Ian Reese QGIS 3.22.0-Białowieża image/svg+xml 2020-02-07T12:44:30 Ian Reese QGIS 3.22.0-Białowieża
Land use cover across the catchment in 2016.

Urban areas in Wānaka and Hāwea have increased since 1990. A majority of this new urbanised landscape resulted from converting productive grassland. However, total production grassland remained constant, due to conversion of grassland with woody biomass.

Data Source

What was all this urbanised land before 1990?

Data Source

Land Use Category 2016 (ha) Net change since 1990 (ha)
Forest 76,000 392
Grassland with woody biomass 50,500 -932
Production grassland 247,800 35
Cropland 1,100 -18
Wetland 39,400 -21
Built-up area 1,400 551
Other 42,600 -7
Land Use Category

Since 1990, there has been a net increase of 300 ha of forestland across the catchment. However, most of this has been through the growth of new exotic forest, while the cover of natural, indigenous forest has seen a net decline.

Data Source

Land uses converted from forestland since 1990.

Forest Cover

To understand the current land use and land use change practices, a more recent dataset from 2008 to 2018 was analysed, showing a gross increase in exotic forest cover of 71 ha, which mainly is a result of the conversion of production grassland (52 ha). 52 ha account for 0.02% of the total production grassland available in the catchment. A gross decrease in indigenous forest cover of 69 ha is observed between 2008 and 2018.

<0.2%

Indigenous forest cover has decreased by <0.2% between 2008 and 2018.

Most of the loss of indigenous forest that took place between 2008 and 2018 was the result of landslides in the high alpine1, rather than a direct impact of anthropogenic activities. While indigenous forest is not under particular threat, other native vegetation classes, such as fernlands, have seen significant reductions in land cover: fernland decreased by 1,500 ha.

Data Source

Land uses converted into exotic forest between 2008 and 2018.